Tag: Open Source Software

Macpup Opera is a branch of Linux based on the famous Puppy Linux, which is known for it’s small size and portability. Puppy was designed to be able to run from a CD or portable flash drive. Macpup Opera takes the Puppy feature set and wraps it up in a beautiful and user friendly interface. The release of version 2.0 of this distro brings with it:

In order to try out Macpup Opera, I downloaded the 163mb ISO live CD image and burned it to my 2Gb SD Flash card using Unetbootin. In a few minutes, I was running Macpup, and I had a nice little laugh, because it barked at me when it was done booting.

The first thing I had to do was to get my wifi network connected. I’ve always been disappointed with the networking wizard that comes with Puppy, but I’ve struggled with it often enough that I got it to recognize my network. Next, I opened the Opera web browser to see how it worked in Macpup.

I was amazed at the speed that I was getting compared to my Windows systems. Opera was surfing, paging, and refreshing faster than I’d ever seen it. This alone is a good reason for me to keep a copy of Macpup around. If my Windows PC ever crashes, I can always boot into a Puppy session for getting fixes off the web.

Many people won’t have any use for this unique Linux version. On the other hand, it’s small, fast, free and really pretty to watch. It’s a great place to start for those who’ve never used Linux before.

[Windows Only] Ã€xCrypt is a free and open source (FOSS) application that lets you quickly encrypt multiple files with a password. There are many free encryption utilities out there and some of them may be as good or better. However, AxCrypt is sure to be handy even if you don’t use encryption very often, since it comes with a portable version named AxCrypt2Go. You can always use the portable version on any PC without the need to install it.

For those who need to encrypt files often, AxCrypt integrates it’s actions into the Windows right click menus. It also allows you to create self-decrypting executable files (encrypt copy to EXE). The self-decrypting files allow anyone to open them up, as long as they have the correct password. It’s safe to send AxCrypt files using email, since AES-128 encryption is used, and it’s not likely that anyone will be able to crack your files open.

Here are some snapshots and descriptions of AxCrypt:

1. When you start installing AxCrypt, you will first have to agree to the GPL license.

2. You can disable any features you don’t want, using the custom setup screen.

3. One drawback at this point is that I didn’t see any way to tell the app where I wanted it to install at on my hard drive.

4. Once it’s installed, the first thing it shows is a prompt asking for an email address. Don’t worry, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. So far, AxCrypt has over 1,805,250 registered users.

5. Now it nags you if you didn’t supply an email address. Did they learn this trick from Microsoft? I wonder how many software engineers think that this really adds any value to the application.

6. Nothing seems to happen after that, but now whenever you right click on a file or folder, you’ll see that you have more options under the "AxCrypt" menu item. Everything needed to use AxCrypt is in there. As you can see, it has some very nice features and functions.

7. If you select "Encrypt", you’ll be prompted for a password.

8. If you select either of the two check-boxes, AxCrypt will remember your password when it’s encrypting or decrypting files.

9. Here you can see me getting ready to encrypt two music files.

10. Once they are encrypted, the files will have an "AXX" file extension.

11. If you right click on them again and choose "Rename" in the AxCrypt menu, it will rename them so that nobody can figure out what was in those files. When you decrypt those files using AxCrypt, it remembers what the file names were and puts them back the way they were before.

12. To get the portable version of AxCrypt, I opened up the Program folder and copied the AxCrypt2Go.exe file onto my flash drive. In order to test it, I un-installed AxCrypt from my PC and tried to use AxCrypt2Go to decrypt some files. It worked fine, and now I don’t need to keep AxCrypt installed on my computer. I will simply keep AxCrypt2Go stored away until I need it. It’s only 486k in size.

AxCrypt will work on most PCs running Windows 2000/XP/Vista or later. AxCrypt has built in translations for English, Danish, Swedish, German, Dutch, Hungarian, Spanish, French, Italian and Norwegian.

I discovered that AxCrypt is very easy to use when it’s installed on your PC. However, the portable version definitely needs work. You can only navigate from the left folder view. If you click on any file or folder in the main (right hand) view, it opens the file or folder in it’s associated program. To encrypt or decrypt, you have to right click on the files. Once you’ve figured that out, I think you’ll find that it’s worth keeping.

One of the most recent builds of the Chromium web browser is drawing some criticism. As you may know, Chromium is the open source browser project that Google’s Chrome web browser is based on. In the Chromium version 5.0.375.3, something new showed up. The address bar was not displaying the normal http://in front of addresses. It was reported in the issues at Chromium’s code site as a possible bug.

However, it turns out that this is an intentional move, and it’s started a fairly heated debate there. Some of the people posting there do not want to have the http prefix removed. Some people argue that it’s a feature that everyone will eventually want.

Apparently, if you need to copy and paste the address from the Chromium address bar, it will automatically add the httpprefix, even though you don’t see it. This will need to happen in order to use copied URLs in other applications.

In my opinion, I don’t think it’s going to be a problem as long as the feature works as they say it will. I sometimes wonder why we even need to type the wwwin the address. It’s a waste of time and I’ll be happy if it goes away for good.

This week we saw lots of interesting activities in FOSS. Here is our weekly roundup of the key FOSS events this week.

News

Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Beta 2 Released

The second beta of Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx was released yesterday. Although it has some small changes, it does not have any striking difference from the earlier Beta 1. If you are using Ubuntu 10.04 Beta 1 with regular updates, there is no need to install the Beta 2 for you. You can read more here.

Songbird Decides to Drop Linux Support

The Pioneers of the Inevitable announced that the Mozilla XULRunner based music player, Songbird, will no longer be supported in Linux. This decision has been blamed on the lack of developers and their inability to continue maintaining Songbird in Linux at the same level as that in Windows and Mac OS X. An active Songbird developer has already forked the Songbird project and named it Nightingale. You can read more about it here.

Firefox in Ubuntu 10.04 is Going To Use Google Search

Canonicals retracted their earlier decision to use Yahoo! as the default search in Firefox that comes with Ubuntu 10.04. Firefox in Ubuntu 10.04 will now use Google as the default search. You can read more here.

Tips & Features

Install The Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Bisigi Themes In Karmic

There are a lot of people still using Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic and they might want to use the updated Bisigi themes but that’s not easy – the new PPA is only for Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid and also Karmic doesn’t have the latest Murrine engine so the themes won’t work – but there is a way to do it. Read more about it at WebUpd8.

Installation and Getting Started with Firebug

Firebug is a free, open source tool that is available as a Mozilla Firefox extension, and allows debugging, editing, and monitoring of any website’s CSS, HTML, DOM, and JavaScript. Read more at PACKT.

KDE has enjoyed great success over the years and today marks another important step in the evolution of our growing community. Many years ago when KDE was just beginning we had a small user base and similar expectations of how the software should work. But with growth and success also comes new users and new expectations. As an effort to meet the growing demands of our user community KDE has identified 3 key areas in which we would like to better cater to users’ needs. In order to achieve this it has been determined that there will be, going forward, 3 separate releases of each Software Compilation tailored to these areas.

Here are the three editions of KDE SC that is going to be available:

Ultimate Freedom Edition: This edition is for those who prefer full customization in everything. This edition will come with a double, triple and quadruple tabbars to make all the settings accessible quickly. If you want to play around with your computer this is the edition for you.

Dwarfed Freedom Edition: This edition is for those who love open-source softwares but cannot handle all the decisions makings that setting up an open-source software requires. This edition will come with all the normal softwares that KDE SC usually comes with.

Basic Freedom Edition: This edition is for those who have just migrated to KDE SC and open-source. This edition will provide a rock solid stability without any customization. To make sure it is as simple as possible, it will be closed-source and root level functionalities are disabled.

This is what KDE chief Matthias Ettrich told a press conference in Hamburg:

It’s not often that we come across such a perfect fit. Where would you find a prominent person whose name and surname both begin with K? She’s the perfect choice to promote KDE. She will give us exposure like nobody else can.

As our web page says, we have a strong focus on finding innovative solutions to old and new problems and creating a vibrant atmosphere open for experimentation,” Ettrich said. “What could be more innovative than getting this big K to promote KDE?

Apparently this move by KDE SC has made the people at GNOME worried and are also trying to get a celebrity to promote GNOME as well.

ChinaGrabber is shipping an unlocked Linux smartphone which has an impressive set of features.

Founded in 2007, ChinaGrabber is a sourcing company. We are exclusive sellers of many of the latest Phones, Car DVD Players, GPS Navigation, BT Multi Interphone, Mp3 and Mp4 players on this site.

The unlocked phone has no brand except for the name bPhone and sports ARM Linux 2.6 on Marvell’s ARM/XScale PXA320 processor.But you might have a good reason to have some interest in this feature packed gadget. To start with, it sports a decent 624 MHz of processor frequency with a 256 MB flash storage and a 128 MB RAM. There is a SD card which can extend your memory to 16 GB. The outstanding feature of the bPhone though, is it’s scree which is huge at 800 x 480, has a 180 degree swivel and is fully touch screen. The display can be folded back into the phone at a hinge just like a notebook.

Apart from that, it features a full QWERTY keyboard and has WiFi, Bluetooth, FM Radio and GPS. The talkime is estimated at 4 hours. The interface supports widget and the OS has support for Java applications.

The phone is selling for $57 which is a $230 discount on the regular price of $800. Head over to ChinaGrabber to claim your bPhone. [ Via: linuxfordevices ]

The third National Free Software Conference was held at Bangalore and was attended by 1500 participants from all over the country. The Conference aimed at promoting the use of Free Software from not just a technical aspect but as an ideology. To better promote the ideology of Free Software, the Free Software Coalition was announced. The Coalition has a total of 16 movements and aims to better the condition of open standards in India.

The movement, which originated in small Linux User Groups at the IITs [Indian Institutes of Technology], has gained significant momentum recently. However, this needs to be taken to the next level to increase its user base and subsequently push the need for Free Software, and free societies, across the country.

The conference saw a number of case studies in areas where free software is used by the government to maintain records. This helps in cutting down costs significantly. The best thing about the conference was that it did not just see Free Software movement as being technical and “strictly for developers”.

The Conference has tie-ups with many state level Free Software groups like FSMWB from West Bengal and Swecha from Andhra Pradesh etc. The Coalition has numerous members from educational backgrounds. [Via: The Hindu ]

Is it just me or something is seriously wrong with FOSS fanatics! I was stumbling through websites and came across this stupid website with a stupid page which goes all gaga about something called PCjacking.

I had not heard of that term until I was surprised to see, it even made to a Wikipedia entry! From what I could figure out, PCjacking is an art of messing up with departmental store computers by quietly installing Linux on them to promote Linux. This of-course is an unauthorized install.

Needless to say, this process involves great risk to your respect, supposed sanity and public profile.

PCjacking is the act of putting a Linux Live CD in a public computer, such as one located in a department store or public library, and rebooting it into Linux. The reason for this is to show people that Windows isn’t the only operating system available and that there are alternatives. PCjacking does not damage the hijacked PC and does not alter any settings.

Some more digging around revealed that these crazy guys have got 696 Diggs! These fanatics are using a Knoppix Live CD and have got a website to their assistance. According to them, this is an opportunity for them to let people know about other Operating Systems than Windows.

They also advise people to try this stunt but let me warn you. Do not. Out of all the things this in-your-face attitude can do to you, getting chased and beaten up is the most probable of them.